Mirror, Mirror
by R.C.C
Summary: The game is won. The Unholy Trinity has pulled off "the Big One" and there's no one left to give them any trouble. Or is there? Can they really stay out of the game for good? Are they really safe? A three letter agency isn't so keen on letting them go and decides to try an alternative approach in an attempt to take them down. IV/V Crossover


Carcer City. A dark room. Spartan furniture punctuated the center of the cement box of a room. A plain, stainless steel table with two chairs on either side made up the extent of the room's furnishings. The walls were plain but for the dull, opaque, reinforced glass panel that spanned one whole wall. A single overhead lamp shone down dimly upon the table and its sole occupant: a rugged man in a worn leather jacket and handcuffs.

He didn't know how long he'd been there, but he knew struggling against his restraints was pointless. His mouth was dry, his lips chapped, and the stubble on his face was beginning to grow into something more. Looking around, there was only one door. Said door was bolted shut from the outside and undoubtedly heavily guarded. Taking down numerous NOOSE teams tended to put people on edge about you. He snorted and coughed, clearing his throat and leaning forward. He glowered at the table top.

He shifted in his seat, trying to prevent his legs from completely going to sleep. Someone would come and question him eventually. They would expect him to be panicked, desperate to get out of this room, this isolation. They would be disappointed. He smiled to himself. Yes. He was quite happy by himself. No one to deal with, no one to please, and no one to worry about. No one to get hurt. He blinked. His smile faltering. Yes, he reminded himself, resetting his smile, making his face stone. He operated much better alone.

Forgetting that always seemed to be a fatal mistake.

A loud clack, then the sound of metal against metal reverberated throughout he room. His head shot up as he immediately set his sights on the door. The vague musings that threatened to surface at the back of his mind scattered and disappeared like rats in a perpetually dark room suddenly illuminated.

The door opened to reveal a man in plain clothes with a manila folder. Not surprising. A detective, maybe, he thought. The man entered the room and shut the heavy door behind him. The sound of metal sliding against metal again ended with a loud clack and a thud. They were locked in the room together.

The suited man was thick and had a head of thinning, salt and pepper hair. He tossed the manila folder down on the table with a slight slap, intended to make the seated man flinch.

He didn't.

The suited man pushed back the sides of his jacket and put his hands on his hips as he stood behind the empty chair, staring down across the table at the seated man in cuffs. After a prolonged period of silence, he spoke.

"You're a hard man to track down, Mr. Bellic."

Niko didn't respond. They knew his name, they had his prints, his face; he didn't need to give them any more. The suited man angled his head slightly and regarded him, a hint of curiosity glinting in his eye. "Did a pretty good job, mopping the floor of the Liberty City underworld, but it wasn't good enough, huh? Had to try your hand here in Carcer City too, huh? Is that it?"

That wasn't it at all, but the suited man didn't need to know that. Niko continued to stare blankly. The suited man let out something that sounded more akin to a bark than a chuckle.

"On the one hand, we appreciate all you've done to clean up the real scumbags, but we can't exactly turn a blind eye to the trail of bodies you have a habit of leaving behind."

Never trust bikers, Niko reprimanded himself, barely listening to the man in front of him. Never trust friends of bikers. Better yet, just don't trust anybody. He scolded himself, as he had hours before. If he hadn't agreed to that job, he wouldn't be in this situation right now. Without a doubt, the bikers that hadn't been killed in the ambush and following shoot out were already booked.

"Nobody takes the law into their own hands. Nobody," the suited man said, his voice dropping its convivial tone from earlier. "We should deport you," he said, and Niko narrowed his eyes and thinned his lips in a faint grimace.

"Go ahead," he said quietly in his best English, leaning his head back defiantly.

"Ah, I was beginning to wonder if you'd gone mute. Your file says you could speak English... Otherwise I'd have just assumed it was a language barrier," the suited man remarked with a lopsided grin.

"Screw you," Niko added, but the suited man just smiled wider.

"You don't want to stay in America? The good ol' U. S. of A.?" he asked, tilting his head. "The land of the free not good enough for you?"

The amount of pride these people had in the concept of their nation was astounding. So pervasive was it, that Niko had believed it too once. He would never understand how he had let himself be so naive.

Crime, his only profession, was the same no matter what country it was in, he had observed. But he didn't need to tell the suited man that either.

The suited man seemed to determine he wasn't going to get a response. "Well," he said, the aggression gone from his voice as he pulled out the other chair and sat down across the table. "Maybe you think you don't care. But could you really go without seeing your... cousin's darling daughter," the suited man said and paused. He flipped open the folder and thumbed through a few papers. "Kate," he burst out, reading the name in triumph. The sharp exclamation made Niko's jaw twitch but his stare stood fast. "Ever again?" the suited man closed the folder and leaned back in his chair. "She's what now?" he asked casually. "Two? Three?"

Five, Niko answered silently, glowering. This asshole in front of him had no right to talk about her.

"No, she's older than that. You were still in Liberty City when she was born, weren't you?" the suited man asked, mostly to himself. He opened the folder and flipped through the pages again. "Five," he corrected, and smiled, quite pleased with himself. "They grow up so fast," he remarked with a toothy smile. "But you know that," he added, looking him in the eye. "You've been popping back into Liberty City constantly over the past couple years. Pretty ballsy, for a wanted man, to return to family and known associates."

Well, he'd done it so far without getting in trouble, hadn't he? If it weren't for those stupid bikers, he thought again. His thoughts devolved to a strain of curses and ill wishes.

"It really would be a shame," the suited man trailed off.

"What do you want?" Niko asked curtly. He'd tired of the suited man's pathetically veiled attempts at manipulation. He would almost give anything just to be left alone in the interrogation room again. Upon further consideration, he wondered if maybe the man was actually that clever and had succeeded in his machinations.

"Straight and to the point, huh?" the suited man asked. "I can respect that. You see, there are these gentlemen out west causing trouble for us. They've got some buddies in the FIB stonewalling us so it's been... difficult... for us to deal with them."

Niko narrowed his eyes and leaned forward again. This sounded familiar. "Who are you? Who do you work for?" he asked.

"Don't you worry your little Slavic head about it," the suited man said through his ingenuous smile. "All you need to know is I've got your file and I have friends in the uh, Paper business."

Niko's lips curled back in an involuntary snarl and his heavy brows knit together. A wave of rage he thought long since dead rolled over him.

"Screw you," he repeated in a guttural rasp. The suited man closed the folder and set it back down on the table, looking very pleased with himself indeed.

"We can do this a couple ways, Mr. Bellic. Seeing as how you've been so cooperative in the past, we are willing to let you go, free and of your own volition, never to return to US soil. And if you don't leave, and we'll know, we'll have to be a bit more... direct," he explained. "You'd have to be deported. And I've heard it's not a fun process," the detective said, smiling calmly, as if discussing dinner plans. He paused, waiting for Niko to bite, but the cuffed man just frowned and glared. "Or," the suited man started, looking mildly aggravated, "You can help us with our little problem and go back to your miserable little life, seeing your cousin and his daughter every couple months, free of our watchful eye."

Niko doubted that. He tested the restraints on his wrists before looking back up at the smiling, balding man.

"You will let me go if I do this favor for you?" he asked, enunciating the words slowly.

"Absolutely," the suited man agreed too quickly.

"What's to say I don't get brought in again a couple months from now. We are back here?" he asked. The man continued smiling.

"We'll do our best. Complications do happen, but you know how to best avoid those, I'm sure. Just be a good thug, do as you're told, and don't ask questions. We are generous, but only so patient. This offer won't last forever, Mr. Bellic."

Of course not, Niko thought. And he did know the only sure way to avoid this kind of thing. As he put his hands on the table for the suited man to remove the shackles, he continued staring, roiling in his apparent failure to abide by the rules he knew would keep him, and others, safe.

Don't get caught and don't give a fuck about yourself, or, more importantly, anybody else.


End file.
